8 7
-
1 0 6
Reconstructing the Funeral Ritual of the
Kievan Prince Igor
(Primary Chronicle, sub anno 945)
2 0 1 0 ,
Aleksandr V. Koptev
X I I I
-
The article deals with the story of the revenge of Kievan Princess Olga to the Drevlyans
who murdered her husband, Prince Igor, in 945. Three stages of the revenge are interpreted
as a princely funeral ritual, determined by the mythological picture of the tripartite structure
of the universe.
S L A V I C A
The Russian Primary Chronicle (The Tale of Bygone Years, ca. 1110), under the year
945, relates the story of the murder of Kievan prince Igor by tribesmen of the tributary
Drevlyans:
M Y T H O L O G I C A
“6453 (945). In this year, Igor’s retinue said to him, “The servants of Sveinald
are adorned with weapons and fine raiment, but we are naked. Go forth with
us, oh Prince, after tribute, that both you and we may profit thereby”. Igor
heeded their words, and he attacked Dereva in search of tribute. He sought to
increase the previous tribute and collected it by violence from the people with
the assistance of his followers. After thus gathering the tribute, he returned
to his city. On his homeward way, he said to his followers, after some reflection, “Go forward with the tribute. I shall turn back, and rejoin you later”.
He dismissed his retainers on their journey homeward, but being desirous
of still greater booty he returned on his tracks with a few of his followers.
The Derevlians heard that he was again approaching, and consulted with Mal,
their prince, saying, “If a wolf comes among the sheep, he will take away the
whole flock one by one, unless he be killed. If we do not thus kill him now,
he will destroy us all”. They then sent forward to Igor’ inquiring why he had
returned, since he had collected all the tribute. But Igor’ did not heed them,
and the Derevlians came forth from the city of Iskorosten and slew Igor and
his company, for the number of the latter was few. So Igor was buried, and his
tomb is near the city of Iskorosten in Dereva even to this day”.1
1
2
S T U D I A
The story represents historical events which were also known to contemporaries
outside Kievan Rus’.2 Although the tale of Prince Igor’s death contains valuable information that itself needs a comparative analysis, in this article I intend to examine the events
that happened after his murder. The medieval compiler and modern scholars alike see in
The Russian primary chronicle 1953: 78-81.
See Leo Diacon, Hist. VI, 10 and the comments by Ditten 1984: 188.
87
Reconstructing the Funeral Ritual of the Kievan Prince Igor (Primary Chronicle, sub anno 945)
the series of violent deaths that followed his killing the stages of revenge by Igor’s widow,
Princess Olga. First, she ordered that the embassy from the Drevlyans who arrived in Kiev
be buried alive; then her servants set fire to the bathhouse where the Drevlyan “best men”
washed themselves, so that they were burnt alive; and finally, the princess went to the
place where her husband was buried and, during a funeral banquet, ordered the massacre
of thousands of Drevlyans. Next year Princess Olga departed for the land of the Drevlyans
with the Kievan army, where she besieged and burned their city Iskorosten, slaughtering
the majority of its population.
The last, fourth action of the princess is structurally and temporary separated
from the former ones. Alexander A. Shakhmatov considered the story of capturing Iskorosten with the help of incendiary birds as a later interpolation to the Initial Compilation
(Nachalnij Svod, 1093-95), added by the author of the Primary Chronicle (ca. 1110).3 This
follows from the fact that the story of the capture of the Drevlyan capital is missing from
the 946 entry in the First Novgorodian Chronicle.4 The story of Iskorosten remained among
the tales and legends of oral tradition until the twelfth century (1110-1118), while the
story of her threefold revenges was possibly written down as early as ca. 1039. Therefore,
scholars frequently examine it alone.
The first three murders are recently considered in scholarship manifestations of the
Dumézilean three functions, but the fourth one is more difficult to interpret.5 At the same
time, when examining the four stages of revenge, scholars give to each of them an explanation connected with a ritual action: funeral, sacrifice, funeral competition, and use of
magic incendiary birds.6 This interpretation allows them to make the basis of the story
ritualistic, rather than a simple banal matter of revenge. My hypothesis is that in this annalistic story we have a series of rituals connected with the death of the Kievan prince.
Although in the opinion of Vasilij M. Istrin, the story does not seem to be an interpolation,
because it logically follows the previous narration, I follow the common approach and
consider here the only three first actions of Princess Olga.7
1. The arrival of the Drevlyan embassy.
“But Olga was in Kiev with her son, the boy Svyatoslav. His tutor was Asmund, and the troop commander was Sveinald, the father of Mstikha. The
Derevlians then said, “See, we have killed the Prince of Rus’. Let us take his
wife Olga for our Prince Mal, and then we shall obtain possession of Svyatoslav, and work our will upon him”. So they sent their best men, twenty in
number, to Olga by boat, and they arrived below Borichev in their boat. At
that time, the water flowed below the heights of Kiev, and the inhabitants did
not live in the valley, but upon the heights. The city of Kiev was on the present
site of the residence of Gordyata and Nicephorus, and the prince’s palace was
in the city where the residence of Vratislav and Chudin now stands, while
the hunting grounds were outside the city. Without the city stood another
3
4
5
6
7
88
Shakhmatov 2001: 84-85, 109-110.
PSRL t. 3: 112-113.
See Garcia De La Puente 2005: 255-272; 2009:193-202.
See Ward 1970: 123-142.
Istrin 1924: 56-57.
Aleksandr V. Koptev
palace, where the palace of the Cantors is now situated, behind the Church
of the Holy Virgin upon the heights. This was a palace with a stone hall. Olga
was informed that the Derevlians had arrived, and summoned them to her
presence with a gracious welcome. When the Derevlians had thus announced
their arrival, Olga replied with an inquiry as to the reason of their coming.
The Derevlians then announced that their tribe had sent them to report that
they had slain her husband, because he was like a wolf, crafty and ravening,
but that their princes, who had thus preserved the land of Dereva, were good,
and that Olga should come and marry their Prince Mal. For the name of the
Prince of Dereva was Mal”.
The tale of the ambassadors from the people, who had killed the prince and then
came with the proposition to marry his widow, looks a bit strange. Some Russian scholars
try to interpret the story as an ancient custom, according to which the power formerly
held by the prince was obtained through marriage to a woman (girl) of the ruling family.8
In this case, the princess Olga held power in Kiev, and the Drevlyans, by marrying their
prince Mal to her, wished to achieve control over the whole Kievan polity.
However, another interpretation of the tale is possible, based upon the folkloric motif of association between death and marriage.9 In this motif, widespread in Russian fairy
tales, the love of the deity of death causes a human to die, as the deity carries him or her
away to its own kingdom for marriage. The historical connection between Slavic marriage
and funeral rites has recently been examined by Valeria Eremina, whose book is devoted
to the symbolism of rites of transition.10 Eremina shows how widespread in Slavic folklore
and ritual tradition is the idea of the joint death of husband and wife, or two lovers.11
Ahmed Ibn Fadlan, the secretary of an Arabic embassy to the Bulgars, saw such a
burial-marriage ritual on the lower Volga in 921. The funeral of a Rūs noble was accompanied by the sacrifice of a girl and was arranged as her marriage to her deceased master.12
Both Arabic and Byzantine authors point to the Slavic and Rūs custom of burning the
wife, alive or dead, together with her dead husband.13 Especially impressive is the information of Abu al-Hasan al-Masudi (The Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems, chap. 17),
written down about 943-947, who relates that if a Slavic or Russian man happened to die
unmarried, or as a widower, he was married off after death:
“One of the various pagan nations, who live in his country, are the Sekalibah
(Sclavonians), and another the Rus (the Russians). They live in one of the two
sides of this town: they burn the dead with their cattle, utensils, arms, and
ornaments. When a man dies, his wife is burnt alive with him; but, when the
wife dies, her husband is not burnt. If a bachelor dies, he is married after his
death. Women are glad to be burnt; for they cannot enter into paradise by
8
9
10
11
12
13
Likhachev 1947: 132-138; 1950: 2, 296-297; 1996: 435-439; Rybakov 1982: 360-362; 1987: 365-375; Froyanov
1995: 59-72. Cf. Garcia De La Puente 2005: 256.
See Propp 1998: 112-436.
Eremina 1991: 83-101, 121-164.
Eremina 1987: 21-32; Eremina 1991: 166-192. Cf. Baiburin, Levinton 1990: 64-99; Garnizov 1991: 247-252.
Kovalevskij 1956: 42-44; Smyser 1965: 92-102. Cf. Lewicki 1963: 32-42.
Kotlyarevskij 1868: 42-43, 46-49, 54-55, 57-59, 61, 63-68, 73, 79, 82-83, 93-95; Lewicki 1963: 10-29; Orientalische
Berichte 2001: 77 (Ibn Rusta), 178, 181-182 (Gardīzī).
89
Reconstructing the Funeral Ritual of the Kievan Prince Igor (Primary Chronicle, sub anno 945)
themselves. This usage prevails also among the Hindus, as we have said. But
the Hindus never burn a woman with her husband, unless it is her own wish”
(translation by Aloys Sprenger).
Here we see the same association of burial and wedding rituals that appears in the
story of Princess Olga in the Primary Chronicle.14 Masudi compares these Slavic and Russian customs with similar Indian ones, which suggests that they may have originated from
a common Indo-European tradition.15
Following this, one can surmise that there was an original version of the tale of
Prince Igor’s death, in which the messengers offered his wife the opportunity to be buried
together with her husband. Later, a Christian compiler put the description of the funeral
ritual into the context of the war with the Drevlyan tribe, headed by their prince Mal.
There are, however, doubts as to whether a Drevlyan prince of this name really existed.
The name ‘Mal’ could originate from a misunderstanding by compilers of the ritual words
that usually accompanied the Russian wedding ceremony, for instance: “you have a bride,
and we have a prince small (mal) for her” or “would your bride like to marry our prince
small (mal) and brave”. The wording “prince small” (knjaz mal) is a euphemism for bridegroom; the compiler most likely converted the common name into the personal name.16
Thus the prince Mal is probably an annalistic fiction.
After the death of Prince Igor, the messengers offer his wife, according to the local custom, the chance to join her deceased husband on the funeral pyre, rather than to marry their
living prince. In the Pereslavlean Chronicle, there is a fragment of the so-called “dream of the
prince Mal”, which tells what he saw in his sleep after the Drevlyans had sent two groups of
ambassadors to Kiev. The prince Mal, preparing for the marriage, dreamt that when Princess Olga arrived she gave him many rich and decorated clothes and other valuable things,
and the boats that would carry him during the wedding ceremony.17 In this case, the “sleeping” prince is the dead Prince Igor, who is waiting for his funeral.18 In the ritual described
by Ibn Fadlan, the Rūs buried their noble men in boats, which provides an explanation for
the boats in Mal’s dream. Analysing the ritual by Ibn Fadlan, H.M. Smyser points out that
the dead leader was buried in a temporary roofed grave for ten days, while funeral clothes
were prepared and other arrangements made.19 In the case of Igor’s death, this period seems
to be the time during which the Drevlyans sent their messengers to inform Olga. Following
the custom in Ibn Fadlan’s description, the enslaved servants of the deceased were asked
who would die and follow him, and a young woman volunteers herself. The noble Rūs died
during a journey along the Volga River, far from his family. Igor’s situation was different; he
had his wife (and perhaps concubines) in Kiev, near the place of his murder. The Drevlyan
14
15
16
17
18
19
90
Kotlyarevskij 1868: 58, 73. Cf. Барјактаровић 1990: 95-105; Ђокић 1998: 136-153.
Cf. Casquero 2001: 253-292 (bibliogr. 287-292).
After the Drevlyans arriving in Kiev proposed that Olga should marry their prince Mal, the compiler added
“for the name of the Prince of Dereva was Mal”. The addition shows the words were an explanation by the
compiler rather than the text of the original story. In other words, “the prince Mal of Dereva” appeared in the
text only after the compiler had explained the original expression “prince small (knjaz mal)”.
PSRL t. 41: 15.
Likhachev 1996: 437 compares the dream of Prince Mal with the description of the funeral ceremony of Prince
Vladimir Galizkij in the Primary Chronicle under 1152, and the dream of Prince Svjatoslav of Kiev in The Tale
of Igor’s Campaign (Slovo o plŭku Igorevě).
Smyser 1965: 107-108; Sayers 1988: 173.
Aleksandr V. Koptev
ambassadors arrived in Kiev, most likely to ask Olga whether she would accompany her
husband herself or find a substitute among the prince’s concubines or slaves.20
Actually, the ceremony for which the Drevlyans arrived in Kiev seems to have been
a posthumous wedding of the deceased prince.21 Therefore, they performed the scene of
matchmaking. But Princess Olga made them participants in another ritual.
2. The first embassy was buried in a boat.
“Olga made this reply, “Your proposal is pleasing to me; indeed, my husband
cannot rise again from the dead. But I desire to honour you tomorrow in the
presence of my people. Return now to your boat, and remain there with an
aspect of arrogance. I shall send for you on the morrow, and you shall say. ‘We
will not ride on horses nor go on foot; carry us in our boat’. And you shall be
carried in your boat”. Thus she dismissed them to their vessel. Now Olga gave
command that a large deep ditch should be dug in the castle with the hall,
outside the city. Thus, on the morrow, Olga, as she sat in the hall, sent for the
strangers, and her messengers approached them and said, “Olga summons
you to great honour”. But they replied, “We will not ride neither on horseback
nor in wagons, nor go on foot; carry us in our boats”. The people of Kiev then
lamented, “Slavery is our lot. Our Prince is killed, and our Princess intends
to marry their prince”. So they carried the Derevlians in their boat. The latter sat on the cross-benches in great robes, puffed up with pride. They thus
were borne in before Olga, and when the men had brought the Derevlians in,
they dropped them into the trench along with the boat. Olga bent over and
inquired whether they found the honour to their taste. They answered that it
was worse than the death of Igor’. She then commanded that they should be
buried alive, and they were thus buried”.
Scholars noted the resemblance between this story and a funeral ceremony long
ago. The boat in which the Drevlyan ambassadors were placed before being buried in a
pit is associated with the boat in which the body of a Russian noble man was burned in
Ibn Fadlan’s narrative.22 The boat buried as a vehicle to another world is known especially
in the funeral customs of medieval Scandinavians.23 There is also other evidence of ship/
boat burials among the Ruthenes, who lived on the Baltic coast, 24 in the Merovingian
kingdom,25 in early medieval England,26 and in Kievan Rus.27
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
Rapov 1988: 156 guessed that Princess Olga adopted Christianity in order to avoid being sacrificed during her
husband’s funeral. For a critical note, see Petrukhin 1995: 230, 205-215.
On the interpretation of Ibn Fadlan’s narrative as a posthumous wedding, see Smyser 1965: 111, cf. Sayers
1988: 177-178.
Lewicki 1963: 25, 30-59; Smyser 1965: 92-102; The ship 1995: 131-137; Montgomery 2000: 1-25.
Major 1924: 113-150; Smyser 1965: 106-107; Davidson 1975: 73-89; The Ship 1995: 100–109, cf. 20-24, 87-99.
Saxo Gesta Danorum, V, 8, 1.
Gregorii Turonensis Historiarum VI, 46; Liber Historia Francorum, ch. 35.
Bruce-Mitford 1975: 230-435. On the funeral of the Danish king, Scyld, in the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf 32-52, see
Voyage to the Other World 1992: 47-78.
Skazanie i stradanie, p. 346; cf. Anuchin 1890: 152-184. It is clear, however, that some funerary rites are of
Scandinavian origin, notably boat-burnings at places such as Staria Ladoga and Gnezdovo; see Franklin,
Shepard 1996: 127-128; Stalsberg 2001: 359-401.
91
Reconstructing the Funeral Ritual of the Kievan Prince Igor (Primary Chronicle, sub anno 945)
The ship or boat in the funeral ritual plays the role of a vehicle to another world.
Such transport was necessary to people who believed that water surrounded their world.28
The idea that an ocean encircled the earth is widespread in Slavic folklore, as well as in the
folk traditions of many other peoples.29 Only by crossing this expanse of water in a boat or
a ship can the dead pass into the otherworld.30 The flying ship, which carries the heroes of
fairy tales away to another world of happiness, is an analogy of death.
According to the Ustyuzskaya Chronicle, Princess Olga ordered that a wide and deep
hole should be dug in the palace yard and live coals of oak put into it.31 The fire into which
Princess Olga threw the Drevlyan ambassadors, like the water and the boat, was a kind of
vehicle to another world.32 Russ and Slavs worshipped fire and often used it during their
ritual ceremonies.33 Fire as a means to enter another world resembles the folklore motif
of a “fiery river Smorodina” between the kingdom of a hero and the other world.34 The
name of the “river Smorodina” means ”stinking river”, because it is not water that runs in
the river, but fiery flames, which leap higher than the trees in the forest.35 The essential attribute of the fiery river is the so-called “Red-hot bridge” (Kalinovij most). It is the bridge
over the fiery river, which is red from heat of the flames below. Another name of the bridge
is “Copper” (Medjanoj), also representing the colour that it turned in the heat.36 On the
Red-hot Bridge, the heroes of Russian fairy tales met the monsters which came from another world and battled with them.
Why, it might be asked, are all the patterns of the funeral rite connected with the
murder of the Drevlyan ambassadors, rather than with the burial of Prince Igor?
The Drevlyan ambassadors arrived in the capital of Princess Olga as “good guests”
(Olga’s words), rather than as representatives of a hostile tribe. Landing in Kiev, they received Princess Olga’s order to appear in her court next day, and responded in a very
strange way, refusing to use any Kievan vehicle: “We will ride neither on horseback nor in
wagons, nor go on foot; carry us in our boats”.37 If we follow the compiler of the Chronicle
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
92
See Kelly 2006: 119-136; West 2007: 389-390.
See Eremina 1984: 195-204; 1991: 55-82; Mencej 1998: 205-224; Mencej 2000: 89-97; Trubachev 2002: 189191, 424. In folk songs, the crossing of the river Danube is often regarded as symbolic of rites of passage, marriage or death. See Harkins 1968: 55-64; Machinskij 1981: 110-171; Eremina 1991: 55-82, 149-164. Trubachev
2002: 190-191 argues that the Slavic word for “paradise”, rajь, was related to *rojь, *rěka (river) and had the
meaning “the world over the river”; cf. Finnish raja – border.
On the symbolism of passages over the river in Russian fairy tales, see Propp 1998: 295, 324, 334. Cf. The ship
1995: 20-24.
PSRL t. 37: 19 and 58; cf. Kirpichnikov 1897: 60-61.
Leo Diaconis (Hist. IX, 6, 21-27) relates the burning and drowning of captives in the river during the funeral
of the noble Russian warrior Ikmor.
The importance of fire-worship among the Slavs features prominently in Arab accounts: Golden 1995: 876887. See further Gimbutas 1971: 151–170. On the custom of cremation by the Rūs and the Slavs, see Kotlyarevskij 1868: 42-43, 46-49, 54-55, 57-59, 61, 63-68, 73, 79, 82-83, 93-95; Trubachev 2002: 207-212.
Propp 1998: 299-300; Eremina 1991: 151-152.
Sometimes the fiery river was called Puchai-river, that is, the river whose water became swollen and is boiling.
Cf. the Old-Russian puchina – abyss.
The Russian names reka Smorodina and Kalinovij most are formed following the homonymy between the
words “kalina” (snowball tree) and “kálina” (burning) (kalinovij = kalénij, i.e. red-hot), “smorodina” (currant)
and “smórod” (stench). The similarities may originate from the magic substitution of a sacred name by a common one, of unknown by known. Many rivers with the name Smorodina in Ukraine and central Russia give
the impression that the mythic river was also called according to shrubbery.
Likhachev 1996: 435-436 sees here elements of folkloric influence. Cf. Garcia De La Puente 2005: 259. They
might have been formed during the period when the tale was orally transmitted, from ca. 946 to ca.1039/1110,
Aleksandr V. Koptev
literally, one can see that the Drevlyan ambassadors did not set foot upon Kievan soil, but
after having been carried in their boats, were sent straight to the world of death. In other
words, Princess Olga, who acts as a master of ceremonies, did not receive the ambassadors, but sent them. In this scene, they were actually sent by the Kievan princess to a God
(or Gods) of another world with the mission to deliver the message of Prince Igor’s death.
Therefore they were messengers, and this role is combined in the Primary Chronicle with
their previous role as ambassadors from the Drevlyans. Delivery of the important message
was the honour which the princess promised to bestow upon them, and with which they
sat in the boat “puffed up with pride”. At the final moment, Olga looked out from the window of her palace and gave a farewell speech to her messengers, inquiring of them what
kind of honour they received; they loudly answered, literally, that it especially concerned
the death of Igor.38 After that the princess ordered that they be covered with earth.
In the Lavrentian and Hypatian versions of the Primary Chronicle, after the messengers were dropped into the trench along with the boat, Princess Olga “bent over (the
trench) and inquired” of them.39 However, before that she welcomed them into her palace;
therefore, a later compiler was more accurate when he wrote that the princess looked
through the window of her palace when she appealed to the messengers. The scene resembles the mythological motif of “window goddess” or “woman at the window”.40
Certainly the “woman at the window” was an aspect, perhaps priestess, of the ancient Mother-goddess (for instance, Inanna/Ishtar/Astarte in the Near East). She was
called “queen of the windows” by the Assyrians and her name, becoming the name of
a minor goddess, Kilili, has been associated with the kililu, “the mural crown” worn by
Assyrian queens. The Sumerians called her “(One) who leans in (or looks out of) the window” or “(One) who answers/ commands from the window”. She was considered wise in
the sense of “skilled” or “knowing”.41 One of the epithets of the Greek goddess Aphrodite,
who was identified with Astarte, was Parakyptousa, “Peeping out (of a window/door)”. According to Plutarch (quest. Rom. 36), the early Roman queen Tanaquil was considered an
incarnation of a similar goddess when she, from the window, advised the people to make
Servius Tullius their king. Plutarch writes that King Servius preserved close ties with the
goddess of his Fortuna, and their relationship was conducted through the window. It must
be added that Tanaquil was also responsible for the assumption of Roman kingship by her
husband Tarquinius, so that one modern scholar called her “a maker of kings”.
From the Hebrew Bible, we know that a daughter of Eth-Baal, king of Sidon, Jezebel, was a devotee of the Canaanite goddess Asherah (Astarte), the main female deity of
her Phoenician home state. After her marriage to King Ahab, of the northern kingdom
of Israel, Jezebel persuaded him to become a worshiper of Baal (I Kings 17: 32). Eventually Ahab was killed in battle (I Kings 22: 35), and later his son and successor, Joram, was
treacherously slain by his ambitious general Jehu (II Kings 9: 22-24). Thus, Jezebel was left
alone and vulnerable in Samaria, at the mercy of Jehu, now king of Israel (II Kings 9: 1-14),
38
39
40
41
when the sacred ritual had been transformed into a profane story.
PSRL t. 3: 112; t. 37: 20 and 58. The phrase is usually understood to mean that Olga inquired of them ironically,
scoffing, as to whether they found the honour to their taste, and they then answered that their torments were
worse than the death of Igor. But the original text allows a different interpretation.
PSRL t. 1: 56; t. 2: 45.
On the “window goddess”, see Borghini 1979: 137-161; Grottanelli 1987: 71-110; Ward 1996: 7-19.
Lapinkivi 2004: 233-234.
93
Reconstructing the Funeral Ritual of the Kievan Prince Igor (Primary Chronicle, sub anno 945)
and a man who blamed her “countless harlotries and sorceries” for most of the problems
of the land (II Kings 9: 22). When Jehu arrived in the city, Jezebel painted her eyes, dressed
her hair, and stood at a window in the palace awaiting her death (II Kings 9: 30). The Biblical picture of Jezebel, defiantly and bravely confronting her enemy from a window, may
also be associated with the motif of the “Window Goddess”.
Some features of Jezebel’s story may have been used during the creation of a preliminary history of Princess Olga, to which the motif of revenge was added later. An early
Russian compiler, perhaps, borrowed them, together with the topic of the brave queen
and timid king (Jezebel and Ahab, Olga and Igor), from the Chronicle of Johannes Malala
because they resembled contemporary folk beliefs known to him. In Slavic belief, the window symbolically connects the house with another world.42 Like a door, a window can
be used to enter the house, but, in contrast to the door, the window is an unregulated
entrance. According to Slavic folklore, in heaven there is a window through which the sun
looks at the earth.43
Ibn Fadlan relates that during the funeral ceremony, the girl who was chosen to
die with her dead master looked into the world of the ancestors through the wooden
construction specially built for the ritual, which resembled an extempore “window”, or a
“doorframe”.44 According to Ibn Fadlan, the men lifted the girl up, and she, looking into
the “well”, reported on her visions of the “other side”, a green and beautiful paradise, her
dead father and mother, other relatives and her dead master.
The scene of Princess Olga at the window resembles not only this, but also the portrait of the goddess Demeter in the frescos at the Bolshaya Bliznitsa tumulus (fourth century BC) on the Taman Peninsula. The portrayal is placed against a blue background,
which is surrounded by the frame imitating a breach in the vault (window); through that
the goddess looked into the tomb (another world).45 Therein, into another world, Princess
Olga looked from the window of her palace, making a farewell speech to the messengers.
The fact that the messengers, burned in a boat, were covered with earth shows the
location of the world into which they were sent, under the ground. The chthonian deity
of the underworld seems to have been Veles (Volos).46 He was one of the two deities by
whose names the Rus’ swore in the treaties with Byzantium in 907 and 971. The fact that
Veles was the object of the first embassy of Princess Olga shows him as an “old god” in
comparison with Perun.
Thus it seems possible that the “murder” of the Drevlyan ambassadors was the first
part of the princely funeral ritual rather than the first stage of the princess’ revenge. In the
ritual the ambassadors played the honorary role of messengers to the god of the underworld.
3. The second embassy was burned in a bathhouse.
“Olga then sent messages to the Derevlians to the effect that, if they really
required her presence, they should send after her their distinguished men, so
42
43
44
45
46
94
See Baiburin 1983: 140-145; Toporov 1984: 184-185.
Trubachev 2002: 213 points to the link between the concepts of “window” (okno) and “eye” (oko) in Russian.
Sayers 1988: 173. Cf. Kotlyarevskij 1868: 77.
See Savostina 1990: 243-244.
Jakobson 1969: 579-599. On the connection of Veles with Varuna, see Trubachev 2002: 428.
Aleksandr V. Koptev
that she might go to their Prince with due honour, for otherwise her people in
Kiev would not let her go. When the Derevlians heard this message, they gathered together the best men who governed the land of Dereva, and sent them
to her. When the Derevlians arrived, Olga commanded that a bath should be
made ready, and invited them to appear before her after they had bathed. The
bathhouse was then heated, and the Derevlians entered in to bathe. Olga’s
men closed up the bathhouse behind them, and she gave orders to set it on fire
from the doors, so that the Derevlians were all burned to death”.
In the burning in a bathhouse, Igor Froyanov sees a sacrifice to the gods of the
upper zone of the Universe.47 I suggest that the second group of Drevlyans were the messengers who were sent, with the help of the fire, into the heavens where they were obliged
to inform the celestial gods of Prince Igor’s death. The compiler emphasizes that Princess
Olga demanded that the Drevlyans send their best men (narochitie muži). The gods of the
upper world were regarded as the highest deities, and the messengers to them had to be of
a suitably high status.48
The embassies to the gods of the lower and upper worlds were probably necessary
because the Kievan Prince was considered the sacred lord of the terrestrial world, the
sovereign of all people and all beings in his territory, a kind of terrestrial deity. In this situation, it was natural to inform the gods, who correspondingly ruled in the cosmic spaces,
the Heavens and the Underworld, about the death of their divine brother.
We have no information to which gods of the upper world the Drevlyan noble men
were sent by Princess Olga. Celestial gods were usually connected with worship of the sun
and thunder. The Heaven and the Sun as Russian deities, Svarog and Dažbog, are mentioned in the Hypatian Chronicle, under the year 1114.49 Svarog is equated with the Greek
smith god Hephaestus and identified with the generative and sexual powers of fire, and
the solar god Dažbog is regarded as Svarog’s son. This evidence is much discussed. On the
one hand, the name Dažbog resembles Greek Zeus, Roman Jovis, Sanskrit Dyauh, Latvian
Dievs, Germanic Tyr, and most likely originated from the basic Indo-European *deiuo-.50
The Sanskrit name Svarga and the Persian xwar indicate an Indo-European etymological
relationship with Svarog.51 Svarga is a heaven, presided over by Indra, where the righteous
live in a paradise before their next reincarnation. On the other hand, the name of Dažbog
resembles a typical euphemism from two Russian words daž (daj) - “give” and bog – “god”
that means “the god who gives, giving god”.52 Therefore, it is frequently considered a pseudo-theonym,53 although in this case the sacred unutterable name of god, *Dejuo-, is very
close to its folk euphemistic substitute Dažbog (Dajbog). Scholars frequently refute the
reality of Dažbog, because in the sources he forms a pair with the solar god Khors (from
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
Froyanov 1995: 59-72.
Both Drevlyan embassies consisted of noble men. According to the Pereslavlean Chronicle (PSRL t. 41: 14 and
15), the first messengers were the “noblest 20 Bojars” and the second “20 especially famous”.
Cf. Rybakov 1981: 266-352, 434; 1987: 440-442; Sokolova 1995: 79-82.
Motz, 1998: 28-39. Cf. Machek 1946: 48-65; Stender-Petersen 1956: 45.
Machek 1946: 60; Stender-Petersen 1956: 51-52; Čausidis 1998: 75-92.
Strakhov 2005: 19 considers the name of Svarog (svartschik – smith, from *sъvariti) literary, generated in
the Christian epoch. The name of Dažbog (lit. “given by the god”, “god’s gift”, a version is the name Bogdan
(Богданъ) which he regarded as a calque of the Greek  (Федот).
See Moszyński 1989: 285-291.
95
Reconstructing the Funeral Ritual of the Kievan Prince Igor (Primary Chronicle, sub anno 945)
the Iranian solar term Xorsed); the latter is considered a sacred name, while the former
is its profane substitute.54 However, one can see in the pair of gods an analogy to Varuna
and Mithra.
In Old Russian texts, Khors also forms a strong pair with Perun. In the Primary
Chronicle the thunder-god Perun is represented in a pairing with Veles during the reign of
Prince Oleg in 907 and Prince Svjatoslav in 971. Under Prince Igor, the Primary Chronicle
names Perun alone as the main deity, while under his grandson, Prince Vladimir, in 978988, Perun appears at the head of a pantheon of five (or six) major deities. His statue was
made from oak, the tree of Perkunas or Perun, according to the Gustinskaya Chronicle,
and the sacrificial fire was kept up with oaken firewood.55 Therefore the use of oaken coals
to fill the pit in which the Drevlyan ambassadors were to burn indicates the presence of
Perun in the ritual concerning Veles.56
The bath house in which the Drevlyan noble men were burnt seems to be the folkloric substitute of a building, which was specially prepared for the sacrifice.57 Such a construction, according to Ibn Fadlan, was built on the ship as a house in which the dead body
would be placed and the rituals performed.58 During the funeral of the Lithuanian Great
Prince Gediminas, which was accompanied with human sacrifice by burning, the victims
were enclosed in a wooden or wicker structure. This resembles the “wickerman” figures,
described by Julius Caesar (Bell.Gall. VI, 16) in Gaul, also used by the druids in sacrificial
rituals.59
4. The massacre of the Derevlians on Prince Igor’s tomb.
“Olga then sent to the Derevlians the following message, “I am now coming to
you, so prepare great quantities of mead in the city where you killed my husband, that I may weep over his grave and hold a funeral feast for him”. When
they heard these words, they gathered great quantities of honey and brewed
mead. Taking a small escort, Olga made the journey with ease, and upon her
arrival at Igor’s tomb, she wept for her husband. She bade her followers pile
up a great mound and when they had piled it up, she also gave command that
a funeral feast should be held. Thereupon the Derevlians sat down to drink,
and Olga bade her followers wait upon them. The Derevlians inquired of Olga
where the retinue was which they had sent to meet her. She replied that they
were following her husband’s bodyguard. When the Derevlians were drunk,
she bade her followers fall upon them, and went about herself egging on her
retinue to the massacre of the Derevlians. So they cut down five thousand of
them; but Olga returned to Kiev and prepared an army to attack the survivors”.
54
55
56
57
58
59
96
Toporov 1989: 103-126; Sokolova 1995: 79-82.
PSRL t. 40: 44.
On the offerings for a big oak on the island Khortiza, performed by Rus, see Constantine Porphyrogennetos
De Administrando Imperio 9. Cf. Rybakov 1987: 210, 374-375; Agapkina, Toporkov 1988: 224-235; Zabashta,
Poshivajlo 1992: 57-68.
On the possible archaeological analogies of the funeral ritual, see Aleksandrov 1994: 22-31.
An old-Russian term for coffin, domovina, has the same root as the term for house, dom. See Nevskaya 1982:
106-121, cf. Smyser 1965: 108.
Miller 2009: 131.
Aleksandr V. Koptev
The third sacrifice, offered by Princess Olga near the Drevlyan settlement of Iskorosten and depicted by the compiler as her “third revenge”, was performed during the
funeral feast on the tomb of Prince Igor. The participants were the widow, her retinue and
a number of Drevlyans. The figure of five thousand massacred is obviously inaccurate
because, according to the next story, the majority of Drevlyans survived and withstood a
siege by Olga’s army within a year. ‘Five thousand dead’ is an “epic number”, a symbolic replacement of the notion “many”. In reality a certain number of Drevlyans were sacrificed.
Herodotus (IV, 72), who describes the similar funeral custom of the Scythians, gives the
number of warriors who were killed to accompany their chief on his journey to the other
world as fifty. The Drevlyans were sacrificed when they were drunk, just as the girl in the
funeral feast of the Russian noble man described by Ibn Fadlan was forced to drink several
bowls of strong drink (nabīdh) before she was sacrificed.
The word “trizna” in the Primary Chronicle is considered a notion for the custom of
war games during the funeral feast of a dead chief. Later, the word became a synonym for
funeral commemoration and the funeral banquet.60 According to Vladimir Toporov, the
trizna could be organized as a ‘three-stage’ battle (*tri > *trizna) between the warriors of
the princess and the Drevlyans.61 Leonid Gindin surmises that such a trizna might have
been organized as a real combat, like the gladiatorial contests in Rome, not merely as military games.62 Seen in this light, the war between Olga’s army and the Drevlyans, which the
Primary Chronicle tells of after the massacre, may be an indirect description or distorted
memory of the same event. In this case, the Drevlyans who were massacred on Olga’s orders could be those who died in the military games; there the result of the combat, usually
influenced by the favour of the gods, was preordained by the princess, who ordered her
servants to make the Drevlyans drunk and her warriors to kill them.
Ibn Fadlan perhaps also observed a trizna during the funeral of the noble Rus, but,
being an Arab, he noticed only the drinking-bout in the ritual.63 Dmitrij I. Ilovayskij drew
attention to Ibn Fadlan’s information about the dividing of the goods of the dead noble
Russian into three parts, of which one part was used for the funeral clothes, the other was
left to the family, and the third was spent on the funeral drinks.64 Ilovayskij sees in the
word “trizna” a third part of the goods used for the funeral banquet, but the three parts
can also be regarded as corresponding to the three parts of the Universe – Heaven (the
burning goods), Earth (the part for the family), and the Underworld (the drinks drunk
during the funeral banquet).65
The description of the burial itself was not necessary for the annalist, as the princess’
revenge on the Drevlyans became the main theme of the tale. The compiler selected from
the oral tradition only that material which concerning the killing of them. Fortunately,
we have the account of the Rus burial by Ibn Fadlan, which enables us to reconstruct the
missing part of the ritual.
60
61
62
63
64
65
Kotlyarevskij 1868: 114-117; Rybakov 1981: 274; Gindin 1990: 65-67; Likhachev 1996: 437-438. Cf. Sayers
1988: 176.
Toporov 1979: 3-20.
Gindin 1990: 67. Many scholars assume the origin of the Roman gladiatorial combats to have been ritual,
rather than sport as they later became.
Kotlyarevskij 1868: 79.
Ilovayskij 2002: 39-40; cf. Toporov 1979: 14 n. 34.
Strakhov 2002: 172-181 argues against the connection between trizna and three.
97
Reconstructing the Funeral Ritual of the Kievan Prince Igor (Primary Chronicle, sub anno 945)
5. Conclusion.
1. Our interpretation suggests that there existed an original story in which Princess
Olga’s actions had nothing to do with revenge for the murder of her husband. Step by step,
she performed the funeral rituals appropriate for a prince’s death: the sending of messengers to the lower and upper worlds, the funeral games and banquet (trizna) on the tomb of
the dead husband. The full description of the princely funeral ritual shows that the author
of the description had at his disposal some factual material.
The assumption that the concept of three worlds existed in the early-medieval Kiev
is based on an interpretation of the so-called Zbruch-idol, tetrahedral pillar of grey limestone found in the river Zbruch in modern western Ukraine. The Zbruch-idol, dating to
the tenth century, has three rows of images.66 The tripartite structure most likely reflects
the ancient concept of a three-world Universe, which consisted of the Heavens (the world
of Gods), the Earth (the world of people), and the Underworld (the world of Monsters).
The figures in the upper row are bigger than the others, which allows for seeing in them
images of celestial deities: one of them holds a sheaf of corn, another a ring, the third has
a horse and a sword, and the fourth is empty-handed. The figures in the middle row are of
lesser proportions than both the gods of the upper worlds and the figures in the lower tier.
The relatively small proportions of two male and two female figures show the transitional
nature of the world represented on this row. Perhaps they symbolised the terrestrial world
between the upper, celestial world, and the lower, underground world. The lower stage is
adorned with a male figure, which supports the celestial and the terrestrial worlds upon
his shoulders. The figure is represented on only three sides of the pillar that corresponded
with the usual describtion of mythical monsters from another world with three heads.
The god of the Zbruch statue is often identified with the West Slavic god Sventovid,
worshiped especially on the island of Rügen.67 The name of Sventovid resembles the Russian word “svet” (light) close to “svjat” (sacred).68 Saxo Grammaticus (Gesta Dan. XIV,
564) ascribed to the god Sventovid the same attributes as the Zbruch deity has: horn,
horse, and sword. The quadripartite figure of the Zbruch-idol is reminiscent of the Indian Brahma, the Roman Janus, and the Greek Apollo of Amyclae, as Bernard Sergent
showed.69 The deity was obviously of Indo-European origin and perhaps personified the
quadruple seasonal division in the annual cycle.
Unfortunately, we have evidence neither of the origin of the Zbruch-idol, nor of any
association with a particular tribe or people. The statue was discovered in eastern Galicia, the ancient population of which was possibly a mixture of the so-called Khalyzians
(Khalisioi in Greek, and Khvalis in Russian), an Iranian people, Slavs (White Croatians)
and Celts (Gallic people, Gauls).70 The neighbouring land was inhabited by the Drevlyans
who murdered Prince Igor. Leo Diaconus (Hist. VI, 10) identified them with Germans. It
is therefore very interesting that the Gothic “Tervingi” is of the same meaning as the Russian “Drevlyane”, that is “forest people”. One can suppose they were, perhaps, a mixture
66
67
68
69
70
98
Lenczyk 1964: 5-59; Rybakov 1981: 460-464; 1987: 236-251; Telegin, Mallory 1994: 77-86; Szymański 1996:
75-116.
On the problem, see Szymański 1996: 75-116; Zaroff 2002: 9-18.
See Toporov 1987: 184-252.
See Sergent 1994: 15-58.
On Celtic analogies to Zbruch-Idol, see Rosen-Przeworska 1963: 65–69.
Aleksandr V. Koptev
of Slavs and distant descendants of the Goths partly inhabiting Eastern Europe in former
times. The place where the Zbruch statue was found is quite close to the traditional Drevlyan territory and its supposed date broadly coincides with the events of 945.
The funeral ritual is represented in the Primary Chronicle as a part of a historical
process. In this context, the behaviour of the participants in it has an entirely different
meaning and sense than it would have had in reality. It is hardly likely that the chronicler
deliberately refashioned the evidence of the rituals in the description of revenge. Obviously the compilers of 1039 or 1110 were not participants in the events of 945.71 The transformation seems to have taken place through repeated oral transmission; the keepers of
the information related the deeds of Princess Olga and her contemporaries, while their
audience perceived the information in their own way and gave it their own explanation.
The changing consciousness of the epoch, especially after the Russians had adopted Christianity, demanded a new interpretation of ’ the events as told by the eyewitnesses. The next
generation that received the story had already lost contact with its origins and, in compliance with the specific character of genre and the expectations of listeners, full of folkloric
details and symbols. Thus, customs and events, which originally had a sacred meaning,
received a rational treatment suitable for a different epoch. They became a part of folklore
and could absorb influence from other genres and traditions.
2. In the case of the story of Olga, the most important was the influence from Scandinavian oral culture familiar to the Kievan ruling house. Prince Igor (Ingvar) and Princess Olga (Helga) were said to be of Scandinavian origin, Varangians (Varyags), so that
they must follow the same principles of behaviour as the heroes of Scandinavian sagas.
However, the Scandinavian origin of the ruling pair could be the product of the Russian
annalistic tradition, which had been created between 1039 and 1118, when Kiev was governed by the dynasty of Yaroslav the Wise married to Ingegerd Olofsdotter of Sweden. It
was the time when oral evidence of Princess Olga transformed into the written story of
her deeds.
Just as Princess Olga was the great-grandmother of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, the
latter’s wife, Ingegerd, was said to be a granddaughter of Sigrid the Haughty (Storråda),
a Nordic queen, who received her cognomen on account of her independent character.
Sagas ascribe to her a prominent role in the politics of her time and depict her as a very
wise woman who also had the gift of prophecy.72 Sigrid is known to have had many suitors
because of her wealth and nobility, and once had the Norwegian king Harald Grenski and
the Russian prince Vissavald, who were burnt to death inside a house on Sigrid’s order
to discourage other petty kings from proposing to her.73 It seems quite possible that this
Swedish tale was known at the court of the Kievan ruling clan and had an influence on
the story of Princess Olga. The burning of enemies in a house was a well-known motif in
medieval Scandinavia, but it is not found in earlier Russian tradition.74 The figure of an in71
72
73
74
Shakhmatov 2001: 111-118 assumed that the story of Princess Olga originated from an ancient biographical
narration; Likhachev 1996: 304-306, from a hypothetical “Tale of adopting Christianity by Rus”; Müller 1988:
795-796, from a folklore tradition.
See Rydzevskaya 1978: 196-197.
Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar (The Saga of Óláf Tryggvason), chapter 43.
On the burning of an enemy/rival in a house, see Brennu-Njálssaga, ed. F. Jónsson, Halle 1908, p. 299-303;
Heiðarvíga saga, ed. Kr. Kålund, Kjöbenhavn, 1904, p. 13-14; Grundvíg S. Danmarks gamle folkeviser, del. III,
Kjöbenhavn, 1862, p. 46-48.
99
Reconstructing the Funeral Ritual of the Kievan Prince Igor (Primary Chronicle, sub anno 945)
dependent woman-ruler like Sigrid was appropriate to the image of Princess Olga because
she had ruled alone in Kiev for some time.75
In this case, the description of the second stage of the ritual (“second revenge”)
in the Primary Chronicle was distorted by Scandinavian influence on the compiler, who
wrote at the beginning of the twelfth century.76 In both stories of the princely widows,
Princess Olga and Sigrid the Haughty consider their suitors unworthy of their own high
status and burn them with their retinue (their matchmakers) in a house.77 Snorri’s story
of Sigrid with only the motive of pride appeared to explain her cognomen “the Proud”. In
contrast, the Primary Chronicle explains the behaviour of Olga as revenge for the murder
of her husband. The more complicated topic of the latter can be a developing of the simpler Scandinavian motif rather than vice-versa, so that the tale may have been transmitted
by Swedish relatives of the Kievan ruling family to the Russian annalists. The motive of
revenge, unusual in Russian literature and folklore, may also have been added to the story
of Olga under the same Scandinavian influence.78
The closeness of the story to Scandinavian culture brings in itself danger of mistaking a Nordic motif for the ritual under consideration. The tripartite structure of the universe has an analogy in Scandinavian mythology, in which the “middle earth” of people
(Midgard) is surrounded by the ocean that divides two other worlds, the upper Valhalla
and the lower Hel.79 Snorri Sturlusson’s Edda depicts the burial of Balder, the Scandinavian
god of the summer sun and a son of Odin, whose body was burned on a ship: “Then was
the body of Balder borne out on shipboard; and when his wife, Nanna the daughter of
Nep, saw that, straightaway her heart burst with grief, and she died; she was borne to the
pyre, and fire was kindled” (Gylfaginning 48). The scene looks like a euphemism for the
sacrifice of Nanna together with her deceased husband.80
The analogies, however, seems to be common for the Indo-European cultural circle.
Specific to the Russian story, the burning of the Drevlyan noble men in a bathhouse as opposed
to a dwelling house in Snorri’s story of Sirgid, is a known motif in Indo-European poetry.81
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
100
At the same time, a proud, independent and unapproachable woman-warrior/regent, who refuses to marry
any suitor of lower dignity than she, is a widespread folkloric image and could be common to Princess Olga
and Sigrid. Olga (~920-969) was a generation older than Sigrid (~968-before 1013). The Russian suitor for
Sigrid’s hand, Vissavald, cannot be identified in Russian history.
On Scandinavian parallels for Olga’s behaviour, see Chadwick 1946: 28-33: Jesch 1991: 111-115.
This is one of the reasons for the appearance of the prince Mal (small) and the wedding embassy in the Primary
Chronicle.
The revenge story of the princess Rogneda of Polozk is known from the Laurentian Chronicle sub anno 1128
(as well as in two manuscripts closely related to it, the Radziwiłł and Academy Chronicles). Garcia De La Puente
2009: 196-197, discusses its similarity to the two Scandinavian legends of Gudrun’s revenge, in Heimskringla
(chapters 76-78) and in Volsungasaga (chapters 34 and 40). Also see Stender-Petersen 1934: 210-244: esp. 215220. It seems, however, that the motif of Rogneda’s vengeance by attempting to kill her own husband was a later
tale added to the original story of Rogneda, known in the Primary Chronicle under the year 980. The addition
was borrowed by the later compiler from Scandinavian tradition. Shakhmatov 2001: 246-251 seems correct in
noting its dependence on the later Novgorodian tradition, which supported the superiority of the Yaroslavichi
clan in comparison to the Rogvolodovichi clan of the princes of Polozk.
The Scandinavian tripartite model of the Universe is represented on the Gotland picture stones. The upper
world there is marked with solar signs and the lower one with a monster. See The Ship 1995: 165-171.
Other examples of similar female sacrifices in early Germanic funerals are discussed by Ellis 1977: 50-58;
Smyser 1965: 109.
See West 2007: 444. It may also go back to the Russian custom of stoking bathhouses for the deceased. See
Likhachev 1996: 437.
Aleksandr V. Koptev
References:
Agapkina, Toporkov 1988 - Агапкина Т.А., Топорков А.Л. “Материалы по славянскому язычеству (древнерусские свидетельства о почитании деревьев)”, in: Литература Древней Руси: Источниковедение, Ленинград, 1988, С. 224-235.
Aleksandrov 1994 – Александров А.А. “Ольгинская топонимика, Выбутские сопки и
русы в Псковской земле”, in: Памятники средневековой культуры. Открытия
и версии, Санкт-Петербург, 1994, p. 22-31.
Anuchin 1890 - Анучин Д.Н. “Сани, ладья и кони как принадлежности похоронного
обряда: Археолого-этнографический этюд”, in: Древности. Труды Московского
археологического общества, Т. XIV, Москва, 1890, p. 152-184.
Baiburin 1983 - Байбурин А.К. Жилище в обрядах и представлениях восточных
славян, Ленинград, 1983.
Baiburin, Levinton 1990 - Байбурин А.К. Левинтон Г.А. “Похороны и свадьба”, in:
Исследования в области балто-славянской духовной культуры. Погребальный
обряд, Москва, 1990, С. 64-99.
Барјактаровић 1990 - Барјактаровић М. “Обичај склапања «брака» са мртвацем”, in:
Гласник Етнографског института, № 39, Београд, 1990, p. 95-105.
Ђокић 1998 - Ђокић Д. “Посмртна свадба на територији јужних Словена”, in: Кодови
словенских култура, № 3. Београд, 1998, p. 136-153.
Borghini 1979 - Borghini A. “Riflessioni antropologiche sopra un mito di proibizione: la
ragazza alla finestra (Ovidio, met. 14, 695-761, e Antonio Liberale, met. 39”, in:
Materiali e discussioni per l’analisi dei testi classici 2, 1979, p. 137-161.
Bruce-Mitford 1975 - Bruce-Mitford R. The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial, vol. 1, London, 1975.
Casquero 2001 - Casquero M-A. “El sacrificio de la mujer viuda en el mundo indoeuropeo”, in: Gerión 19, 2001, p. 253-292.
Chadwick 1946 - Chadwick N. The Beginnings of Russian history: an enquiry into sources,
Cambridge, 1946.
Čausidis 1998 - Čausidis N. “The Slavic Pantheons in a Visual Medium – Svarog”, in: Studia Mythologica Slavica 1, 1998, p. 75-92.
Davidson 1975 - Davidson Ellis H.R. “The Ship of the Dead”, in: The journey to the other
world, edited by H. R. Ellis Davidson, Cambridge, 1975, p. 73-89.
Ditten 1984 - Ditten H. “Zu Germanoi-Derevljane in Leon Diakonos’ Geschichtswerk, VI,
10”, in: Byzantinoslavica, 45, 1984, S. 183-189.
Ellis 1977 - Ellis H.R. The Road to Hel: A Study of the Conception of the Dead in Old Norse
Literature, Cambridge, 1977 (First published 1943).
Eremina 1984 - Еремина В.И. “Историко-этнографические истоки мотива “водагоре””, in: Фольклор и этнография. У этнографических истоков фольклорных
сюжетов и образов, Ленинград, 1984, С. 195-204.
Eremina 1987 - Еремина В.И. “К вопросу об исторической общности представлений
свадебной и погребальной обрядности (Невеста в “черном”)”, in: Русский
фольклор, вып. 24, Ленинград, 1987, C. 21-32.
Eremina 1991 - Еремина В.И. Ритуал и фольклор, Москва, 1991.
Fischer 1970 - Fischer R. L. “Indo-European Elements in Baltic and Slavic Chronicles”, in:
Myth and Law among the Indo-Europeans. Studies of Indo-European Comparative
Mythology, ed. by J. Puhvel, Berkeley & Los Angeles & London 1970, p. 147-158.
101
Reconstructing the Funeral Ritual of the Kievan Prince Igor (Primary Chronicle, sub anno 945)
Franklin, Shepard 1996 - Franklin S., Shepard J. The Emergence of Rus 750-1200, London,
1996.
Froyanov 1995 - Фроянов И.Я. Древняя Русь, Санкт-Петербург, 1995.
Garcia De La Puente 2005 - Garcia De La Puente I. Perspectivas indoeuropeas en la Cronica
de Nestor: analisis comparado de su contenido con el de otras tradiciones indoeuropeas. Incluye traduccion al espanol, PhD, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2005
(unpublished): “Las venganzas de Ol’ga”, p. 255-272.
Garcia De La Puente 2009 - Garcia De La Puente I. “The Revenge of the Princess: Some
considerations about Heroines in the PVL* and in other Indo-European Literatures”, in: Medieval Slavonic Studies, Paris, Institut d’etudes slaves, 2009, p. 193-202.
Garnizov 1991 - Garnizov V. ”Смърт = сватба”, in: Problemi na bolgarskia folklor, № 8.
Sofia, 1991, p. 247-252.
Gimbutas 1971 - Gimbutas M. The Slavs, London, 1971.
Gindin 1990 - Гиндин Л.А. “Обряд погребения Аттилы (Iord. 49,256-259) и “тризна”
Ольги по Игорю (ПВЛ, 6453 г.)”, in: Советское славяноведение, 1990, № 2, С.
65-67.
Golden 1995 - Golden P.B. “Al-Sakaliba”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. VIII,
1995, p. 876-887.
Grottanelli 1987 - Grottanelli C. Servio Tullio, Fortuna e l’oriente, in: Dialoghi di Archeologia ser. 3,5, 1987, p. 71-110.
Harkins 1968 - Harkins W.E. “The Symbol of the River in the Tale of Gore-Zločastie”, in:
Studies in Slavic Linguistics and Poetics in honor of B.O. Unbegann, New York, 1968,
p. 55-64.
Ilovajskij 2002 - Иловайский Д. И. Начало Руси (“Разыскания о начале Руси. Вместо
введения в русскую историю”), Москва, 2002 (reprint 1890).
Istrin 1924 – Истрин В.М. Замечания о начале русского летописания: по поводу исследования А.А.Шахматова, Ленинград, 1924.
Jakobson 1969 - Jakobson R. “The Slavic God Veles and His Indo-European Cognates”, in:
Studi linguistici in onore di Vittore Pisani, Brescia, 1969, p. 579-599.
Jesch 1991 - Jesch J. Women in the Viking Age, Woodbridge, 1991.
Kelly 2006 - Kelly W.K. Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folk-lore, London, 2006
(reprint 1863).
Kirpichnikov 1897 - Кирпичников А.И. “К литературной истории русских летописных сказаний”, in: Известия Отделения русского языка и словесности Академии наук, 1897, Т.2. Кн.1. С.54-64.
Kotlyarevskij 1868 – Котляревский А.А. О погребальных обрядах у языческих славян,
Москва, 1868.
Kowalska 1972 - Kowalska M. “Ibn Fadlan’s account of his journey to the state of the Bulgars”, in: Folia Orientalia 14, 1972-73, p. 219–230.
Lapinkivi 2004 - Lapinkivi P. The Sumerian Sacred Marriage in the Light of Comparative
Evidence, Helsinki, 2004.
Lenczyk 1964 - Lenczyk G. “Swiatowid Zbruczański”, in: Materialy Archeologiczne V,
1964, p. 5-59.
Lewicki 1963 - Lewicki T. “Les rites funéraires paїens des Slaves occidentaux et des anciens
Russes d'après les relations - remontant surtout aux IX-Х siècles - des voyageurs et
des écrivains arabes”, in: Folia Orientalia V, 1963, p. 1-74.
102
Aleksandr V. Koptev
Likhachev 1996 – Лихачев Д.С. “Комментарий”, in: Повесть временных лет, Второе
издание, Санкт-Петербург, 1996.
Machek 1946 - Machek V. “Essai comparatif sur la mythologie slave”, in: Revue des Études
Slaves XXIII, 1946, p. 48-65.
Machinskij 1981 - Мачинский Д.А. ““Дунай” русского фольклора на фоне восточнославянской истории и мифологии”, in: Русский север: проблемы этнографии и
фольклора, Ленинград, 1981, C. 110-171.
Major 1924 - Major A.F. “Ship Burials in Scandinavian Lands and the Beliefs that Underlie
Them”, in: Folk-Lore XXXV, 1924, p. 113-150.
Masudi - Mas’udi, Meadows of gold and mines of gems, translated by Aloys Sprenger, vol.
I, London, 1841.
Mencej 1998 - Mencej M. “The Image of Water as the Border between this World and the
Other-World”, in: Studia Mythologica Slavica 1, 1998, p. 205-224.
Mencej 2000 - Менцей М. “Славянские народные верования о воде как границе между миром живых и миром мертвых”, in: Славяноведение, № 1, 2000, С. 89-97.
Miller 2009 - Miller D. “Women of Power Compared in the Celtic and Slavic Tradition”, in:
Proceedings of the Second International Colloquium of Societas Celto-Slavica (Moscow, 14-17 September 2006), ed. Sh. MacMathuna, etc., Moscow, 2009, p. 128-135.
Montgomery 2000 - Montgomery J.E. “Ibn Fadlān and the Rūsiyyah”, in: Journal of Arabic
and Islamic Studies III, 2000, p. 1-25.
Moszyński 1989 - Moszyński L. “Daž(d)ь-bogъ - rzekomy prasłowiański teonim”, in: Slavia orientalis 38, N 3-4, 1989, p. 285-291.
Motz 1998 - Motz L. “The Sky-God of the Indo-Europeans”, in: Indogermanische Forschungen 103, 1998, p. 28-39.
Müller 1988 – Müller L. “Die Erzählung der “Nestorchronik” über die Taufe Ol’gas im
Jahre 954/955”, in: Zeitschrift für Slavistik 33, 1988, S. 785-796.
Nevskaya 1982 - Невская Л.Г. “Семантика дома и смежных представлений в
погребальном фольклоре”, in: Балто-славянские исследования 1981, Москва,
1982, C. 106-121.
Orientalische Berichte über die Völker Osteuropas und Zentralasiens im Mittelalter:
die Ǧayhānī-Tradition (Ibn Rusta, Gardīzī, H
. udud al-Alam, al-Bakrī und alMarwazī), von Hansgerd Göckenjan und István Zimonyi, Wiesbaden, 2001.
Petruhin 1995 - Петрухин В.Я. Начало этнокультурной истории Руси IX - XI веков,
Смоленск, 1995.
PSRL = Полное собрание русских летописей:
t. 1. Лаврентьевская летопись, Москва, 1962.
t. 2. Ипатьевская летопись, Москва, 1962.
t. 3. Новгородская первая летопись старшего и младшего изводов, Под ред. А.Н. Насонова. Москва - Ленинград, 1950.
t. 15: Тверской сборник, Москва, 2000.
t. 37: Устюжская летопись, Ленинград, 1982.
t. 40: Густинская летопись, Санкт-Петербург, 2003.
t. 41: Летописец Переславля Суздальского, Москва, 1995.
Propp 1998 - Пропп В. Я. “Исторические корни волшебной сказки”, in: Собрание
трудов В. Я. Проппа. Составление, научная редакция, текстологический
комментарий И. В. Пешкова, Москва, 1998, p. 112-436.
103
Reconstructing the Funeral Ritual of the Kievan Prince Igor (Primary Chronicle, sub anno 945)
Rosen-Przeworska 1963 - Rosen-Przeworska J. “La tradition du dieu celtique à quatre
visages chez les Protoslaves et les Slaves occidentaux”, in: Antiquités nationales et
internationales IVe annee. n° 14-16, 1963, p. 65–69.
Rapov 1988 - Рапов О.М. Русская церковь в IX - первой трети XII в.: Принятие христианства, Москва, 1988.
Rybakov 1981 - Рыбаков Б.А. Язычество древних славян, Москва, 1981.
Rybakov 1987 - Рыбаков Б.А. Язычество Древней Руси, Москва, 1987.
Rydzevskaya 1978 - Рыдзевская Е.А. Древняя Русь и Скандинавия в IХ-ХIV вв.,
Москва, 1978.
Savostina 1990 - Савостина Е.А. “Сакральное пространство и погребальный обряд
боспорских гробниц”, in: Исследования в области балтославянской духовной
культуры, Москва, 1990, С. 237-247.
Sayers 1988 - Sayers W. “An Irish Perspective on Ibn Fadlan’s Description of Rus Funeral
Ceremonial”, in: Journal of Indo-European Studies 16, 1988, p. 173-181.
Sergent 1994 - Sergent B. “Svantovit et l´Apollon d´Amyklai”, in: Revue de l’Histoire des
Religions 211, 1994, p. 15-58.
Shahmatov 2001 - Шахматов А.А. Разыскания о русских летописях, Москва, 2001 (reprint 1908).
Skazanie i stradanie – Сказание и страдание и похвала мученикам святым Борису и Глебу,
in: Библиотека литературы Древней Руси, т. 1, Санкт-Петербург, 1997, p. 346.
Smyser 1965 - Smyser H.M. “Ibn Fadlān’s Account of the Rūs with Some Commentary
and Some Allusions to Beowulf ”, in: Franciplegius: Medieval and Linguistic Studies
in Honour of Francis Peabody Magoun Jr., eds. J. Bessinger and R.P. Creed, London,
1965, p. 92-119.
Sokolova 1995 – Соколова Л.В. “Дажбог (Даждьбог)”, in: Энциклопедия “Слова о полку
Ирогеве”, Санкт-Петербург, 1995, том. 2, с. 79-82.
Sokolova 1995а - Соколова Л.В. “Хорс”, in: Энциклопедия “Слова о полку Игореве”,
Санкт-Петербург 1995, том. 5, с. 187-188.
Stalsberg 2001 - Stalsberg A. “Scandinavian Viking-Age boat graves in Old Rus”, in: R. K.
Kovalev & H. M. Sherman (eds.), Festschrift for Thomas S. Noonan, Russian History/
Histoire russe 28, No. 1-4, 2001, p. 359-401.
Stender-Petersen 1934 - Stender-Petersen A. Die Varagersage als Quelle der Altrussischen
Chronik, Aarus-Leipzig. 1934.
Stender-Petersen 1956 - Stender-Petersen Ad. Russian studies, Aarhus, 1956.
Strahov 2005 - Страхов А.Б. “Ловушки «народной» этимологии”, in: Palaeoslavica ХIII,
2005, № 2. С. 14-15.
Strahov 2002 - Страхов А.Б. “Из области обрядовой терминологии: цслав. трызна,
(б)дынъ, etc.”, in: Palaeoslavica X. 2002. C. 166-196.
Szymański 1996 - Szymański W. „Posąg ze Zbrucza i jego otoczenie“, in: Przegląd Archeologiczny, 44, 1996, p. 75-116.
Telegin, Mallory 1994 - Telegin D.Ya. Mallory J.P. The Anthropomorphic Stellae of the
Ukraine: The Early Iconography of the Indo-Europeans, Washington, 1994.
The Russian primary chronicle: Laurentian text, translated and edited by Samuel Hazzard
Cross and Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor, Cambridge (MA), 1953.
The ship as symbol in prehistoric and medieval Scandinavia: papers from an International
Research Seminar at the Danish National Museum, Copenhagen, 1995:
104
Aleksandr V. Koptev
Schjødt J.P. “The Ship on Mythology and Religion”, p. 20-24.
Müller-Wille M. “Boat-graves: Old and New Views”, p. 100–109.
Warmind M.L. “Ibn Fadlan in the Context of his Age”, p. 131-137.
Ellmers D. “Valhalla and the Gotland Stones”, p. 165-171.
Toporov 1979 - Топоров В.Н. “К семантике троичности (слав. *trizna и др.)”, in: Этимология 1977, Москва, 1979, С. 3-20.
Toporov 1984 - Топоров В.Н. “К символике окна в мифопоэтической традиции”, in:
Балто-славянские исследования. 1983, Москва, 1984, p. 184-185.
Toporov 1987 - Топоров В.Н. “Об одном архаичном индоевропейском элементе в
древнерусской духовной культуре — *svet-”, in: Языки культуры и проблемы
переводимости, отв. ред. Б.А. Успенский. Москва, 1987. С. 184-252.
Trubachev 2002 - Трубачев О.Н. Этногенез и культура древнейших славян : лингвистические исследования, Москва, 2002.
Voyage to the Other World. The Legacy of Sutton Hoo, ed. C.B.Kendall and P.S. Wels, Minnesota, 1992.
Ward 1996 - Ward W.A. “The Goddess within the Facade of a Shrine: A Phoenician Clay
Plaque of the 8th Century B.C.”, in: Rivista di studi fenici, 24, 1996. p. 7-19.
Ward 1970 - Ward D.J. “The Threefold Death: An Indo-European Trifunctional Sacrifice”,
in: Myth and Law among Indo-Europeans: studies in Indo-European comparative
mythology, edited by Jaan Puhvel, Berkeley, 1970, p. 123-142.
West 2007 - West M.L. Indo-European Poetry and Myth, Oxford, 2007.
Zabashta, Poshivajlo 1992 – Забашта Р.В. Пошивайло О.М. “Перуновi дуби”, in: Археологiя 1992. № 2. С. 57-68.
Zaroff 2002 - Zaroff R. “The Origins of Sventovit of Rügen”, in: Studia Mythologica Slavica
V, 2002, p. 9-18.
105
Reconstructing the Funeral Ritual of the Kievan Prince Igor (Primary Chronicle, sub anno 945)
Rekonstrukcija pogrebnih obredov ob smrti kijevskega princa Igorja
(«Nestorjeva kronika», sub anno 945)
Aleksandr V. Koptev
Nestorjeva kronika pri letu 945 poroča, kako so podložni Drevljani umorili kijevskega kneza Igorja in kako se je maščevala njegova vdova, kneginja Olga. Najprej je ukazala žive zakopati odposlance Drevljanov, ki so prišli s to novico v Kijev. Nato so njeni
služabniki zažgali savno, v kateri so se umivali najuglednejši Drevljani, da so živi zgoreli.
Nazadnje je kneginja odšla na prostor, kjer je bil pokopan njen mož, in med pogrebno
pojedino ukazala pokol tisočev Drevljanov. Avtor vsako od teh dejanj razlaga kot pogrebni
obred ob smrti kijevskega kneza. Trije obredi so sestavljali tri stopnje pogrebne ceremonije, ki je potekala v sklopu predstav o trodelni zgradbi sveta. Zdi se, da je bila ta mitska
slika razširjena med Rusi in Ukrajinci v 10. stol. v Kijevu, njen izvor pa lahko najdemo v
skupnem indoevropskem kulturnem krogu.
106